At the entrance of St. Anthony Community Health Center, some 6 miles north of Beirut, a sticker reads, “USAID – From the American People – International Medical Corps.” It is a designation that no longer applies.
On 20 January, the U.S. administration issued an executive order freezing all government foreign assistance, initially for three months, through several departments and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The order was accompanied by a statement indicating the “foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values.”
The sudden freeze in U.S. government funding, vital for thousands of humanitarian projects — U.S. foreign assistance in 2024 totaled $56 billion worldwide — reverberated across the globe and stunned nonprofit agencies and their beneficiaries.
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